This is the domain of Chef Pierre (Rimoneau ) who, as part of “The Verandah’s” Asparagus Fest, has graciously parted with two of his most delicious Asparagus recipes, especially created and prepared in order to showcase the delicious flavour of the wonderfully white asparagus and the organically grown green asparagus and using ingredients from the Royal Projects.

In fact I am off tomorrow “Asparagus hunting” in our new hypermarket. It will not be the wonderfully thick white kind of variety which was very much part of my German seasonal feast, when I still lived in the country of my birth, but just the very thin green variety which I got to like later in England – better than nothing at all, I say. Don’t you agree?

Asparagus Salad with waxy boiled quail eggs

80 g Asparagus, green import

90 g Asparagus, white import

120 g Asparagus, local (wherever you are)

30 g mixed salad

20 g sundried tomatoes

10 g parmesan shaving

65 g boiled quail egg

1 g edible flower

25 g lime and olive oil dressing

½ g chervil

Method

Peel and boil the asparagus: 3-4 min for the green one’s and 8-10 min for the white one’s, according to their size. Test.

Pick and clean salad, dry and mix together.

Boil the quail eggs, 3 min. Cool them down and peel them.

Prepare an olive lime juice dressing with salt and pepper.

Set the salad in the plate, add the asparagus cut in length, the sundried tomato cut in strips, and add a flower on top.

Add some parmesan shaving and at the last minute cut the quail eggs and place them on top of the salad, the yolk should be running into the salad.

Serve right away – with the dressing separately.

Enjoy!

So, for whatever your personal taste buds crave, I suggest you try both – and why not!? I am sure you will not be disappointed. Second recipe will follow in a couple of days.

I hope you all enjoyed your treat and of course I will pass on your comments together with my personal thanks to Chef Pierre and to Executive Chef Stefan for their kind help and support.

You my dear friends, who have been following me here since last year, know by now that without any doubt the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok Hotel in, yes of course, in Bangkok/Thailand is my most favourite hotel of all those beautiful hotels I have stayed in.

You also know, that the floral genius Khun Ken, displays every few months one of his incredible creations for the guests to admire.

This time, in order to herald in summer, Khun Ken has ‘decked the hall’ with this striking display of purple orchids.

So, come and lets board an imaginary plane and fly out to Bangkok where we can sit in the lobby once again with our tea, coffee and/or drinks and those absolutely delicious Macaroons 🙂 and enjoy the view.

And if you feel up to staying on for lunch or dinner later, join us on The Verandah for one of Chef Pierre Rimoneau’s specially created dishes, showcasing fresh white asparagus imported daily from France alongside green asparagus from Thailand Royal Projects. This Asparagus Season lasts until 31st May. Come back for recipe later!!

For the last 10 days I have been at war – at war with the twice annual flu-bug! Not nice at all, especially in our heat. But in the end I emerged as the winner – thanks to my Doctor, some antibiotics and of course because of the loving tender care of my husband! 🙂

So here now is the conclusion, as previously promised, of our short ‘sojourn’ in Kovalam.

For our last evening at VIVANTA by TAJ KOVALAM the golf buggy took us right down to the shore of the Arabian Sea to the hotel’s new contemporary restaurant appropriately named “BAIT”, a very rustic looking place befitting its location.

Our table was set not inside the restaurant, but outside, close to the edge of the beach.

The smell of the sea, the crashing of the waves against the huge bollards along this strip of private beach, competing with the soft sound of music coming from the main restaurant, set us into the right mood to look forward to Chef Elangovan’s promised culinary surprise for that evening.

We could hardly wish for a more romantic setting – the tiny flickering lights of hundreds of fishing boats way out at sea, the clear stars above us high up in the sky, candles on our table and all over the garden.

But to top it all, we had a huge full moon shining down on us, sending its silvery light across the water.

It was then that we decided that we will come back here in a few month time – just for a little break again.

Chef, for this occasion, had prepared indeed a very special treat for us. Something, I must confess, I had not come across before on all my travels around the world.

Red Snapper on Mango Wood

Ingredients:

Red Snapper Fillet 300 g

Green chilly 10 g

Salt a pinch

Small onion 5 g

Curry leafs a few

Ginger & garlic paste 1 tsp

Turmeric powder ½ g

Tamarind or lime juice 1 no

Coconut oil 5 ml

Mango wood or

Tamarind wood slab 2 nos

Method:

Make paste out of chilly, ginger, garlic, turmeric and tamarind or lime juice.

Grate the small onions and mix with marinate paste and coconut oil.

Apply the marinate all over the fish, rest for a couple of minutes.

Grill the fish in hot pan on both sides

Place the fish on mango wood slab and bake in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes.

Before serving garnish with sprig of curry leafs.

Accompaniment with roast baby potatoes and char grilled vegetable.

This is a truly delicious fish dish, light and delicate in flavour. I will have to go out hunting for Mango tree slabs from a ‘friendly’ timber merchant since I have a feeling that this preparation will be arriving on our table a few times soon.

PS. Since I have been talking about ‘Mangos” here I cannot get a well known song out of my head; a song which I learned whilst living for 3 years out on the wonderful island of Trinidad/W.I. and was made popular in the James Bond Film “Dr. NO”. “……..Underneath the Mango tree me Honey, And me can watch for the moon …..”

No, this is not a spelling mistake and to be frank, I was not even able to find out why exactly this dish was called ‘Petter Pan’.

Having driven by car for 13 hours to see our youngest daughter, Andrea, we were able to take her out of her College for at least one day and two nights and moved her into our hotel “The Regaalis” in Mysore – the City of Palaces.

Of course we were more than happy to be with her for at least those few hours, but we did not have time to go and visit the Royal Palace (again) – which really is nearly a whole day affair (and worth a blog entry by itself), if one wants to do it properly. It is certainly worth it and if you can plan it try to go on a Sunday evening, when the whole Palace is illuminated with thousands of small lights.

The Regaalis is a very pleasant 4-star hotel not too far from the city centre with swimming pool and an excellent reputation especially for its local cuisine. I was taken into the very spacious kitchen to meet ‘the man in charge’ of this gastronomic territory, Executive Chef Aga Thammar Murthuza, who, in his own words, “… wishes to make the dining experience of each and every guest of his a specialone….” And he most certainly did not disappoint any of us.

Andrea chose the above fish dish from the menu and Chef happily parted with his recipe for me to share with you. I promise it is really delicious. In fact I went to my local fish market nearby this morning to see if I could get Basa. And lucky me, I was able to get a nice piece which I will make tomorrow for lunch. If you cannot get Basa fish, any other white (softish) fillet will have to do – but take pain to pull out all the little bones before you cook this fish (I have a thing about bones in fish and will forego to eat even the most delicious dish if there are any bones left!).

Heat 1 tsp of butter in pan, add the chopped garlic, sauté till golden brown, add the spinach and stir for 35 to 40 seconds. Boil the assorted vegetables, drain the water, sauté the vegetables with some butter, a pinch of salt and some dried herbs. Toss the boiled baby potatoes with some butter and chopped parsley. Finally heat some butter in a pan, add the Capers and the lime juice and stir for a couple of seconds.

Once the fish is completely done, dish it out on to a plate. Add some sautéed Garlic Spinach, Parsley, Baby Potatoes and the butter sautéed Vegetables. Top the fish with the caper-butter sauce. Garnish with some chopped parsley and a slice of lime and enjoy the first of our three “Regaalis” dishes created by Chef Aga.

Whilst we were recently in Bangkok, Ms. Amanda Hyndman, General Manager of Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok, announced the promotion of Stefan Trepp to the position of their new Executive Chef. He succeeded the brilliant Chef Norbert Kostner who becomes the Hotel’s Culinary Director. I wish them well in their new endeavour.

Chef Stefan was born in 1979 in Switzerland. He started off on the long hard road of culinary excellence to become a Master Chef in Chur/Switzerland, where he studied for 3 years. He very quickly but steadily rose up in his profession by first working in some of the best hotels in Switzerland, before he embarked on his professional journey around the world to the USA, Dubai and the Philippines, where he was Chef de Cuisine of the Mandarin Oriental Manila.

He left Manila in 2007 and joined the Banyan Tree Phuket/Thailand as their Executive Sous Chef in September of that year.

Chef Stefan is a highly innovative Chef who totally lives and breathes food – this is his all time consuming passion and his total dedication to his craft shows in the dishes he prepares for a highly sophisticated international clientele.

In 2009 he joined the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok where he started working closely with the famous Chef Norbert Kostner, the then Executive Chef.

Chef Stefan’s love clearly now belongs to South-East Asia – the places, the peoples, their custom and above all their unique cuisine.

He has an incredible talent for bringing edible art to your plate, but how can one ‘destroy’ such a beautiful ‘picture’ by actually eating it – a good and valid question and the answer is simple – only with a heavy heart! After all nobody likes to destroy beauty.

With Valentine’s Day not too far away, he created a most delightful Appetizer for me and for you, my friends, and he named it:

When a few years ago the one-time British culinary “Wunderkind”, Jamie Oliver embarked on his trip to Italy he was told by an elderly couple at his parent’s Pub in Essex, that he must make sure to cook “Turkey Tetrazzini”. He had to admit of never having heard of this recipe. So he rode the waves of the Internet and found out all what there is to know about this particular dish. He discovered that this dish, which goes by various different names (Chicken-, Turkey-, Tuna- Tetrazzini), is also quite often simply referred to as a “Pasta Bake” – a name which I personally hate.

Ok, I admit, this is a very simple, unassuming and very difficult to photograph dish, but – although by many regarded as an ’old-fashioned’ dish by now – it has managed to get people around the world asking in the Oliver Twist way “….. Please, Sir, Can I have more……” because it is such a delicious dish, elegant and yet comfort food in one. But let’s face it, who really cares here if it is old-fashioned or not, nouvelle cuisine, neu, modern, hip, hop or however you want to call it – like good clothes, which never really go out of fashion completely – in fact only just sort of hibernate for a few years and then surface again as the latest inspiration of the new hot Designer of the moment. Food also has a period of certain popularity, which comes and goes. Who in the UK does not remember the one Christmas and the Oh so popular Delia Smith and her Cranberry’s!?

There must be numerous variations to this recipe, but I give you my own trusted version which I have been serving at my table around the world for so long now.

But coming back to the, for me at least, ever young “Chicken Tetrazzini” the story, according to Wikipedia goes that this dish is named after the Italian opera star, Luisa Tetrazzini and it is widely believed to have been invented ca. 1908-1910 by Ernest Arbogast, then chef at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, California, where Tetrazzini was a long-time resident.

When “in my previous life” I lived for 4 ½ years in Western Nigeria, (European) food items were then extremely difficult to come by, even on “the black market”. Chicken though I was able to get as well as the occasional delivery of spaghetti, which I unashamedly sort of stockpiled for entertainment purposes. Some other small essential items were brought back from the UK in my suitcase. And so, out of necessity, this dish soon became my own ‘piece de resistance’ when we had to entertain foreign VIP’s.

One of my favourite visitors and guest at my own dinner table was the person in the photograph below.

Sir Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton. He was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963.

I was really blessed on the whole with the nicer kind of visiting VIP’s unlike some of my peers. The majority of them were easy going, kind, appreciative of the difficult situations and places we had to deal with, the non availability of sometimes just basic food stock, endless power cuts for days (and of course no generator!). Sometimes even a “bread-and-butter” letter and/or a small thank you gift like flowers, chocolates, books or even small treasured items like Malden Salt reached me and the letters in particular meant a lot, just a few kind words. Remember, those were the days prior to Smartphone’s, iPods etc. (just think about it – how did we ever manage as well as we did without all those gadgets?!) In fact I learned early on “in my previous” life that some of the nicest and most appreciative and considered guests are the ones who are really very important in their private and professional life and the others, who have just put up that facade, are the real – and how shall I put it elegantly – ……pain in the neck!!

Sir Harold was a true gentleman and one of the least big headed people passing through my life. He took time out and taught me how best to grow long green beans and tomatoes in our climate. He taught me how best to train the passion-fruit vine over my pergola and the days he stayed with us he treated me less of his temporary hostess but more of a daughter which, yes, I enjoyed.

This dish can be prepared in advance and easily and quickly finished off in the last minutes. To make life easier, I suggest just do what I normally do. I do not have exact measurements; I just go by the “look/like/use”.

In a large wok or pan melt some butter with some olive oil, when hot add chicken and cook over medium heat for 3-4 minutes, keep stirring. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. When done take out with slotted spoon and keep aside. Now add all your mushrooms and sauté over medium heat until the mushroom liquid has evaporated, maybe 2 minutes. Now add everything else like onion, garlic and the thyme m sauté for another 6-8 minutes or so, keep stirring. When it becomes dry add the wine or some of your chicken stock. Add more butter and flour and for a couple of minutes whisk everything together to avoid lumps. Bring your heat to high and whisk in cream, broth, milk, nutmeg. When this starts to boil, uncover and simmer on very low flame until your sauce starts to thicken. Don’t leave this alone now for the next 10 minutes, whisk frequently. When done, add to the chicken mixture.

In the meantime cook your pasta in a large pot of salted water. When done, drain very quickly and add pasta to your chicken- and sauce mixture. Mix very well and put everything into the baking dish. Top with the breadcrumb/cheese mixture and leave in the oven for app. 25 minutes, or until a nice light brown crust starts to show.

So tell me, friends, what is your favourite version of this dish? I am always open to suggestions.

When I was still a tiny Tot and barely able to walk, so my mother used to tell me and her story was confirmed by my doting paternal Grandfather, I, out of the blue, developed this irritating habit of closing my eyes firmly shut, swinging my arms (flapping ungainly most likely) and “dancing” around our living room bumping into furniture, knocking down things. When my mother slightly concerned tried to stop me for fear that I may hurt myself or ‘hurt’ some of our precious items in the room, all she ended up with was a little daughter who brutally was forced to exit her imaginary world of ‘make believe’ and come back into the grown-up world with a bump – into reality!

Ever since my mother and some of our friends took me to see Tchaikovsky’s wonderful ballet “The Nutcracker” around Christmas time, this little girl here had only one giant wish, she wanted Fairy Godmother to come to our house and turn her into a Ballerina by the sheer wave of her magic stick. But she did not want a place in the Corps de Ballet, oh no, she wanted only the top job – Prima Ballerina. But in time she had to learn the hard fact that this job was not going to be hers – ever!

But my love for classical music, opera and the ballet stayed with me all through my life.

Years and years later in ‘my previous life’, when back in London on 2 months leave; I was introduced to ‘Glyndebourne’ by some dear dear friends of ours. To be frank, up to then I had no knowledge of this yet another wonderful British Institution. Glyndebourne is a country house, thought to be about six hundred years old, and located near Lewes in East Sussex, England. Many Glyndebourne attendees come from London by train and wearing evening dress. Glyndebourne is regarded as part of the London/English summer season. Performances start in the afternoon, enabling Londoners to leave town after lunch, and finish in time for them to catch the last train back. A long interval allows opera-goers the opportunity to have their meal on the extensive lawns or in one of the restaurants – but then, and maybe even today, most opted for “picnic on the lawn”. We went by car from Kent where we stayed with Neil and Mary for a few days. The car was laden with an array of splendid picnic items and enough delicious food and drinks for an army – or so it seemed to me at the time.

To this day I will never forget Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale” and even now, if I close my eyes I can transport myself back in time and to that magical day. We were blessed with one of those rare beautiful English summers’ days – warm enough to sit out on the lawns during the extra long interval in front of this beautiful Country House and yet cool enough as not to feel uncomfortable in one’s evening dress attire in the middle of the day.

One other fond memory I have of this particular day – Mary’s soup! Not just any old soup oh no, this was her secret family recipe which she consistently had refused to share with anybody else, until I came into her life. And now, decades later, I like to share it with you, dear friends – another little treasure from my memory box!

This is such a quick and easy recipe which you can make for any surprise visit of family or friends, as long as you always have a few basics in your store cupboard. While your visitors enjoy their drinks you whisk this up in your kitchen in no time. But to bring out the mixture of flavour this soup should preferably be served very chilled.

Add 3 (or more or less depending on your own taste) large spoons of mayonnaise, and blend it into your tomato mixture.

Now add 2 tsp of curry powder (or more or less) to this and blend in well.

Transfer to a large pretty (glass looks nice) bowl and add 1 tsp (or more or less) of hot Tabasco sauce, mix very well (this is actually the “little secret” people never guess.) This soup is supposed to have “a kick!” And just before serving this truly delicious soup plop some ice cubes, in which you have previously frozen some parsley leaves, into the soup.

Serve with some extra garlicky toasted bread cubes on the side.

This soup is actually quite filling, so watch out, if you want to serve this as a first course at a summer’s lunch party.

And if you happen to like this, do say a quiet “thank you” to my late friend Mary.